Because she could

Weather

Rensselaer got less snow than was forecast on Wednesday. It snowed most of the day, but it was light and most of what fell on streets melted. Still the local schools called off classes.

We got more snow Wednesday night so the roads have a snow cover this (Thursday) morning and schools are closed again. The temperatures are lower than they were on Wednesday, so the snow may stick for a while.

City Council meeting

The Rensselaer City Council met on Monday with a fairly short agenda. It began by passing an ordinance to return outstanding warrants, a bookkeeping measure that I think puts funds for checks that have been issued but not cashed after a couple of years back into the general fund. It then heard from its bond consultant about the bond financing for the waterworks improvement project, the new water tower by the Interstate and water main improvements. The bonds will get funding from the State Revolving Fund (SRF) and will have a zero percent interest rate. The ordinance, which will be presented and passed at the next meeting, authorizes bonds not to exceed $9,350,000 but the expected amount is $5.5 million and $2 million will be structured as forgivable. The actual issuance of bonds will be on February 24. The bond consultant, spoke for about 5 minutes, then left so he could drive back to Indianapolis.

The Council approved a resolution to transfer the Weston Perpetual Care fund to a new account, done because the State Board of Accounts told them to do this. There were also two new opioid fund accounts established because the City will be receiving money into these accounts for several years.

The Council approved $250 for the City Open House on Wednesday afternoon for the City's Comprehensive Plan and up to $100 for a sympathy gift for an employee's parent. They also approved seeking requests for proposals to do an inventory of the electric department. The water utility had received two bids to make improvements to the electrical service of the two water towers and the Council approved one of them. They also approved replacing one of the two aerators at the sewage plant.

The back of City Hall has been selected as a site for a mural this summer. There was a concern about whether people who get utility e-bills are getting the announcements that those who get paper bills get. The City-wide garage sale will be on April 29 and clean-up week will be May 1-5. The Electric Utility had received three bids for a new truck and the Council approved the low bid. Delivery will be in about six months; the only way to get the government discount is to place an order.

Slow news week

At the City Council meeting I heard that workers would attempt to move the last engine to be scrapped from the power plant on Tuesday. They had a new machine, shown below, but it never did pull the engine out. There seemed to be no workers on site on Wednesday.

There seems to be a lot of activity on the construction of the new lift station but I cannot see what the workers are doing. 

My 12-year-old granddaughter publishes the only paper in a town I sometimes call Nowhere, Nevada. It is a monthly, one-page paper. In the January edition she reports on the result of a cross-country ski race:

The race that I did there were only 4 people in my race, 2 of which were kids and 1 adult. I won my race and then I went to the snack table and drank hot chocolate and then coffee and then I ate a whole bunch of junk food because I could. Then mom came in 5th in women. She's very happy that she finished the race.

She writes the paper because her mother make her do it. Mom thinks the project is educational.

I post links to my blogspot posts on Facebook. I recently discovered some statistics that Facebook keeps on these Facebook posts. I am not sure what the time frame for these numbers are, perhaps the past month or past two months.